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Mephistopheles: Not All Linux Games Sell Well

02-29-2012, 08:10 AM

Phoronix: Mephistopheles: Not All Linux Games Sell Well

While some indie Linux game sales have generated more than two million dollars in two weeks, that isn't the case for all indie Linux games. One example of a Linux game struggling is the latest title from Kot In Action, the well-known game studio behind the Steel Storm series...

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I'm not surprised. When I first saw this I thought it looked like a poor clone of Hexen 2. Considering Hex2 is over 15 years old, that's not a good first reaction.

And that's the problem with "alpha-funding". You have to have something that people want to buy. In this case they have a tech-demo but little more. Give it a few more months' work and I'm sure it'll look a lot better and people will be more interested in in.

Of course there are notable exceptions. Tim Schafer can get a couple of million without providing anything because he has a track record of making awesome games in the genre that he's proposing releasing. Kot-in-Action doesn't have that track record.

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I'm not surprised. When I first saw this I thought it looked like a poor clone of Hexen 2. Considering Hex2 is over 15 years old, that's not a good first reaction.

I didn't reply to the last article because I didn't want to sound overly negative but that was my reaction too. If they had coded the engine from scratch then maybe they would have had an excuse but given that they are using DarkPlaces, this essentially looks like Quake with different models. A half decent coder and modeller could probably come up with this in a few days.

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*yeah right, 'cause since these Linux people are used to testing and using alpha/beta/RC software all the time so they're going to pay you $10 just for the privilege to test your game... mmmkay

*this is a different type of game/play than the previous one, one needs more proof that they can deliver a fun game after all.

*stop reposting the whining bit from the Humble thing, it makes them look even lower, their game=their contract, negociate better next time and don't act surprised that gamers that bought your game with $1 don't suddenly recommend your game to another 10 who want to buy it full-price

*what guarantees does one have that they will not pull a Primal Carnage trick down the road? :-|

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well it does look kind of awful...
if you are going to advertise a game with a tech demo it should be a good one... the fact that its on linux isnt quite enough.
is there any cracking story? any other enemies? dialogues? cool fighting skills?
and the promise that if people opened their wallets the next one will be better, sounds like the church, promising a joyful afterlife.

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*stop reposting the whining bit from the Humble thing, it makes them look even lower, their game=their contract, negociate better next time and don't act surprised that gamers that bought your game with $1 don't suddenly recommend your game to another 10 who want to buy it full-price

I reposted it because someone was not aware of the story and genuinely believed that the Humble Bundle would be the solution for them.

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Possibly because people hate preordering games that may sound good on paper but may be terrible? I don't remember the guys at Frictional complaining of low preorders.

Sure Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert can e-beg for advance funding and actually break 2 mil on their own http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...fine-adventure but theres a few key differences, they've got a long history of producing really good games and they're offering all kinds of perks to those that cough up a certain amount. (Also, Larabel, Y U NO POST THAT THEY ARE MAKING LINUX VERSION!?!?!?1)

There are very few game devs I would ever even consider buying a game prerelease no matter the cost. Possibly the only one I would still do that for is Kojima Productions which are the guys behind the official Metal Gear series of games as they always hit it out of the park.